Desperate For a Touch

Mark 2:3-5

3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Mark 5:25-34

25 Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, 26 and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. 28 For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.”

29 Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. 30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?”

31 But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’”

32 And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. 33 But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. 34 And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”

Contained within these two passages are the stories of a desperate man and a desperate woman: The first is the story of a man who had been paralyzed his entire life, and the second story is about a woman who had been dealing with a medical condition for several years, had spent all her money trying to find relief, but the doctors had no cure. There is absolutely no doubt that these two individuals who, though their situations were extremely different, their desperation led them to the same place.

People become desperate when they reach a point where all hope of resolving their situation on their own is gone, and they are forced to seek a solution outside of themselves. I know what this kind of desperation feels like, because I’ve been there.  You reach the point where you realize that none of your efforts to change your current situation have worked and you are willing to try just about anything. You no longer care what anyone thinks or says, you are willing to be ridiculed if it can bring you peace. You will go where you never thought you would go, you won’t allow anything or anyone get in your way, because you’re desperate and you’re are ready to take desperate measures.

Desperation is the condition that exists when a recognized need is present and we have no way of meeting it on our own.  God’s people are needy, every last one of us, but many are stubborn, and few are willing to acknowledge their need. Desperation only comes when there is a recognized need that is beyond our own ability to meet.

Webster’s Dictionary defines desperation as: feeling, showing, or involving a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad, as to be impossible to deal with.

Contrary to the way that most people traditionally view desperation, I want to enlighten you today of the truth, desperation is not a bad thing. The world has taught us that the last thing we want to be is desperate. It is looked upon as a sign of weakness to ask for help. But from God’s perspective, desperate people are those who are willing to acknowledge that there are some circumstances that only He can rescue us from.  God loves it when we are desperate, because in our desperation we are forced to acknowledge that we need Him. There are many promises contained in the pages of His Word that only come to those who are desperate.

I believe the will of God is that every one of us would reach some measure of desperation. I believe His message to us all is that we have been examined by the great physician and diagnosed, “weary and heavy-laden.”

When I see in the pages of His Word the life that is available to us, and then I see in my own life, in other believer’s lives and in the church, the low level of spiritual life and the absence of spiritual power, it creates a sense of emptiness in me, a recognition that we are many times falling short of the glory that has been prepared for us, and it stirs in me a feeling of desperation.

I am desperate today because I recognize the need for spiritual power to reach the lost, to heal the sick, and to help set free those in bondage, and because I know that only God can give us what we are lacking.

The desperate will receive their blessing from God because they absolutely will not be kept from the presence of their healer by physical boundaries! They are willing to press through hopeless circumstances just to touch Him for a moment!  They are willing to shout out His name when the world around them discourages them and tries to quiet their cries! They are willing to rip off a roofs to obtain an audience with the Lord, push their way through the crowd, they won’t be offended – “even the dogs eat the crumbs.” 

Desperate people happily let go of their dignity for an opportunity to be touched by deity.  I don’t know about you, but I’m desperate for more than a simple, basic Christian existence, I want to go beyond just getting by with the minimum requirements.  I want to fulfill Christ's command to "go and make disciples of all nations."  I want "these signs" to follow and His Spirit to flow in my life.  I am desperate for, as the modern worship song proclaims, "more love, more power, more of you in my life."  I am desperate for just a touch, just a glimpse of His glory, just a moment in His presence, so that I might receive the power promised to those who, in desperation, cry out for more!